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Apples and Norse Mythology - Term Papers

Apples and Norse Mythology

In Norse mythology, the goddess Iđunn is portrayed in the Prose Edda (written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson) as providing apples to the gods that give them eternal youthfulness. English scholar H. R. Ellis Davidson links apples to religious practices in Germanic paganism, from which Norse paganism developed. She points out that buckets of apples were found in the Oseberg ship burial site in Norway, and that fruit and nuts (Iđunn having been described as being transformed into a nut in Skáldskaparmál) have been found in the early graves of the Germanic peoples in England and elsewhere on the continent of Europe, which may have had a symbolic meaning, and that nuts are still a ...

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goddess Frigg sends King Rerir an apple after he prays to Odin for a child, Frigg's messenger (in the guise of a crow) drops the apple in his lap as he sits atop a mound.[13] Rerir's wife's consumption of the apple results in a six-year pregnancy and the Caesarean section birth of their son - the hero Völsung.[14]

Further, Davidson points out the "strange" phrase "Apples of Hel" used in an 11th-century poem by the skald Thorbiorn Brúnarson. She states this may imply that the apple was thought of by the skald as the food of the dead. Further, Davidson notes that the potentially Germanic goddess Nehalennia is sometimes depicted with apples and that parallels exist in early Irish stories. Davidson asserts that while cultivation of the apple in Northern Europe extends back to at least the time of the Roman Empire and came to Europe from the Near East, the native varieties of apple trees growing in Northern Europe are small and bitter. Davidson concludes that in the figure of Iđunn ...

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Apples and Norse Mythology. (2011, March 9). Retrieved January 12, 2026, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Apples-and-Norse-Mythology/95778

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 3/9/2011 03:08:41 PM
Submitted By: mejgan1
Category: Mythology
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 413
Pages: 2

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